Search the Community

Warning: the following post is extremely long, has poor grammar, and is liable to cure insomnia in some readers do not drive or operate heavy machinery while reading! I was just reflecting on the number of conventional weapon mods and being an enthusiast of lasers and plasma I was a little disappointed that there were so few options for those of us who prefer antimatter over lead so I began wondering about other possible sources of inspiration for energy weapon design. One source that struck me due to how completely obvious it seemed in retrospect. XCOM! Now obviously there are laser and plasma weapons in the vanilla game as well as a Sonic weapon in Old World Blues but I feel that they are missing several things: 1. A discrete power advantage- the original Fallouts had energy weapons with a discrete damage output over conventional firearms. XCOM takes this to the extent that a mere laser pistol is stronger than the best conventional weapon shot for shot (even in the new XCOM a laser pistol fully upgraded at the foundry and put on a gunslinger has a damage comparable to an LMG). Compare to New Vegas where a Plasma minigun has lower everything than a rifle from WWI. Naturally, they should be ridiculously difficult to find or expensive and their Elerium/Zrbte ammo should be difficult to find. 2. Aesthetics- Some items of both universes have similar aesthetics (the AER14 looks suspiciously simiar to the laser rifle of the original Fallout and Apocalypse has a 50's retro vibe for everything. Here's where xcom weapons add to the game without breaking lore. The weapons are nice and colorful. Different but still look retro 50's. Consider the Gauss weapons from Terror From the Deep. I feel with a few adjustments to proportion and colorfulness the weapons could fit right in. Also, I dig the organic look of Disruptors and Devastators 3. Variety- Xcom weapons typically have more variants per type than what you find in Fallout. There are also some weapons for lovers of conventional firearms. More than that there are discrepancies between the types: Sonic Weapons have superior accuracy, very low rate of fire, and low ammo count but do sustantially more damage than plasma counterparts. Disruptors have infinite ammo, extremely high damage, high firing rate, and low accuracy. Devastators being the last type of weapon discovered in the XCOM timeline are extremely high in every area with twice the damage of Disruptors, infinite ammo, and they have the best accuracy. What do you guys think? Interesting idea or should I not have even bothered? Did I even post this in the proper forum? Comment below and let me know.